


crawl into corners where you want to belong

by downtheroadandupthehill



Series: growing my own trees while you follow the moon [2]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Discussion of Abortion, F/F, Les Amis run an abortion clinic, abortion clinic AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-13
Updated: 2014-04-13
Packaged: 2018-01-19 07:18:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1460638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/downtheroadandupthehill/pseuds/downtheroadandupthehill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What?” She must accidentally shout the word, or at least say it louder than she meant to, because suddenly all of her friends and coworkers are looking at her with collective concern. “Why in the hell was Grantaire bleeding? Is she okay? What happened?”</p><p>“One of the protesters punched her in the face,” Combeferre says slowly, right at Enjolras’s side.</p>
            </blockquote>





	crawl into corners where you want to belong

“Where’s Grantaire?” Enjolras asks her friends, as they all file out into the parking lot at 5:30 on Saturday, ready to relax and enjoy their Sunday off. She could feel the tension ebbing from her shoulders, but for some reason Grantaire is gone, left early, or maybe even never showed up to work that day.

“Made her go home,” Bahorel mumbles through the cigarette in their mouth, a hand cupped around their face as they light it. “She was bleeding pretty bad, but not bad enough for stitches or anything like that. But she needed the rest of the day off, anyway.”

“ _What_?” She must accidentally shout the word, or at least say it louder than she meant to, because suddenly all of her friends and coworkers are looking at her with collective concern. “Why in the hell was Grantaire _bleeding_? Is she okay? What happened?”

“One of the protesters punched her in the face,” Combeferre says slowly, right at Enjolras’s side. She tucks a fan of dark hair behind her ear. “Nothing broken or injured beyond repair, but her nose was bleeding and her lip was split pretty badly. I took a look at her between appointments before she left.” She puts a steadying hand on her shoulder, and Enjolras tries not to start outright snarling and seething. Her knuckles whiten as she clenches her small hands into fists.

No one else looks surprised--they’re all still wearing their expressions of puzzled concern--and Joly and Courfeyrac, outright confusion--but no one looks as shocked or appalled or angry or as _worried_ as Enjolras does.

“Did everyone already know?” The realization hits her hard, leaves her chest heaving and almost struggling for breath. “Everyone knew that _someone punched Grantaire_ and no one told me?”

Combeferre’s hand on her shoulder tightens, and Courfeyrac swoops in to curl an arm around Enjolras’s waist. Pink lips curve into a small smile and her eyes sparkle with too-familiar mischief as she says, “I think we all assumed that you’d already heard from someone else. You obviously spend too much time cooped up in the office, Enjolras. And Grantaire is fine, honestly, but I’ll be sure to tell her how pretty and flushed you are when you’re all worked up and fretting about her like this.” She pinches Enjolras’s side with a tinkling laugh.

Enjolras’s face gets even redder at that, and when she glances at Combeferre, sees that she’s smiling at her, too, not bothering to suppress it.

“What happened?” she asks the group, trying to get her voice back into business-mode. Judging by the way that Jehan is nudging Feuilly and whispering in her ear, she might be failing. She’s curious, though. There’s a reason Grantaire is a clinic escort--she’s good at her job, good at making small jokes and comments to ease the tension from a tough situation, and doesn’t let herself get provoked by the nasty things the protesters like to say. They provoke her, Grantaire resists the temptation to provoke back--it tends to lessen the chance of physical violence, although it makes Enjolras wonder how in the hell Grantaire can manage it, when she seems to try and provoke everyone else in her everyday life.

“Something with pamphlets.” Bahorel shrugs and flicks the cigarette between their fingers. “You can ask her yourself on Monday, or at the Musain tonight. I think she still plans on coming out.”

Enjolras purses her lips and nods, thoughtful. “Thank you. Maybe I’ll see you all later, then. Combeferre?”

Combeferre finally lets go of Enjolras’s shoulder, and they walk over to Combeferre’s car together. It’s still covered in ugly graffiti from earlier this week-- _BABY MURDERERS_ scrawled in red spray paint across the hood that neither of them have scrubbed off yet. They live together, and Combeferre drives them both to work everyday. Enjolras remembers promising that she’d clean it herself, but hasn’t found the time. Maybe tomorrow, if the gorgeous weather holds.

While Combeferre starts up the engine, Enjolras climbs into the passenger seat and reaches for her phone. Her thumb twitches over Grantaire’s name.

“Combeferre,” Enjolras begins, hesitant.

“Do you want me to drop you off at Grantaire’s?” Combeferre gives her a sidelong look and a sly smile, her fingers tapping out a steady rhythm on the steering wheel.

Enjolras swallows and nods, slips her phone back into her pocket without typing out a cursory, polite _How are you feeling?_ text. “Please. Thanks.”

Combeferre doesn’t turn on the radio or start up one of her awful ska CDs as she usually does on their way home from work, leaving Enjolras to sit in contemplative silence. Until she asks Enjolras, “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Talk about what?” Her cold, defensive tone is a reflex more than anything, one that Enjolras immediately regrets.

“That’s all right,” Combeferre says peaceably, and there’s that slight smile lighting up her face again, that slight smile that means Combeferre knows literally everything about everything, and she’ll tell you what you need to know when the time is right. Only then does Combeferre start up some music, humming along and glancing every so often at Enjolras’s disgruntled face, still smiling.

Enjolras crosses her arms and leans her head against the window. It’s only a short ride to Grantaire’s ramshackle house on the edge of the city. Enjolras hasn’t been here often--Grantaire never hosts parties and rarely has friends over, as apparently her house is what she fondly refers to as a “death trap.” The plumbing frequently goes out and the filthy white siding is falling off the exterior. The tiny lawn is never mowed, and Enjolras eyes the rusty swingset in the front yard with unease. One of the nicer touches, she thinks, are the flowerbeds just outside the front door, overflowing with irises and hibiscuses and bee balms and phlox. It’s the first time she’s seen the garden, since Grantaire, Jehan, and Feuilly planted it, though she remembers hearing them discuss it at work. It needs weeding, but it’s beautiful anyway, and Enjolras makes a mental note to ask Jehan about making room for some flowerbeds outside the clinic, to brighten the place up a little bit.

“I’ll see you when you get home, but call me if you need a ride home,” Combeferre says, and kisses Enjolras on the cheek before Enjolras swings her door open and gets out of the car.

The front door is propped open, and Enjolras feels strange walking into Grantaire’s house uninvited. She thinks she can hear the television on, which at least means Grantaire must be home--and at least she isn’t leaving her front door wide open when she isn’t. She knocks a few times on the door, for good measure, and waits.

A few moments later Grantaire is coming around the corner from her living room in a black t-shirt and pink boxers patterned with little yellow ducks that are inexplicably adorable, that Enjolras would probably be staring at with her mouth open and a blush rising high in her cheeks if it weren’t for Grantaire’s _face_.

Her lower lip is red and swollen, scabbed over near one of the corners of her mouth where it must have been split open, and the entire right side of her face looks like one enormous bruise, black and purple and yellow all at once. There’s bag of frozen chicken nuggets in Grantaire’s hand--she must’ve been using it to ice her face, Enjolras realizes.

“Fucking hell,” Grantaire says, when she sees Enjolras, and takes an instinctive step backward.

Enjolras takes three steps forward to close the distance between them, through the theshold of Grantaire’s front door and closer, reaching up to press a gentle hand to the side of Grantaire’s face.

Her fingertips brush Grantaire’s cheekbone briefly before Grantaire lets out a noise that sound like it might be pain, and Enjolras drops her hand immediately. Folds her hands together in front of her, so she can control the urge to touch again.

“What happened?” she asks Grantaire. “Bahorel said someone punched you. No one told me until we were all just leaving. I--got a little worried. Sorry. But, _what happened?_ ” It all comes out in a rush, the words tumbling out of her mouth stilted and awkward before she can stop them, and Enjolras doesn’t blame Grantaire for looking mildly terrified.

She watches Grantaire take a deep, steadying breath before speaking. “Some church congregation passing out pamphlets. Disgusting ones, with all these fake, bloody pictures. Really vile shit to show our patients, you know?” Grantaire leans against the wall, presses her plastic bag of chicken nuggets to her face again. “So one of our patients pulls in, and she has her daughter with her, I think. Girl was like, five or six years old, and this preacher guy is _trying to hand her a gross fucking pamphlet._ ” Enjolras can see the fury rising in Grantaire again, as she recounts what happened. “So. I--” She looks a little flustered, shrugs her shoulders sheepishly. “I know I’m not supposed to, but I ripped his whole stack of pamphlets from his hand and threw them across the parking lot. I know we’re legally supposed to let them pass out whatever shit they want to whoever they want, but come on. A little kid? And the guy told me I’d burn in hell and he punched me, though Bahorel got ahold of him before anything worse happened.”

Enjolras must be gaping, because Grantaire’s expression softens and she says quietly, “It’s really not a big deal. It looks worse than it really is.”

“One of you called the police, right?” Enjolras asks.

“Bahorel had Jehan report what happened, but the cops didn’t even bother to come out. They never do,” Grantaire says.

“I know.” And she does--the Atlanta police rarely even show up for incidents like these, or whenever the clinic receives a bomb threat or Combeferre and Joly get death threats. When they do, they’re rude and cursory, not even pretending to take the time to find a suspect or make an arrest.

“Do you want to come in?” Grantaire says suddenly. “I can put a movie in, if you want. And um, I can make something that isn’t--” She glances at the bag in her hand. “--Something that isn’t chicken nuggets, for dinner.”

“I’d like that,” Enjolras says, before she can think too hard about it, talk herself into saying no. She follows Grantaire into the living room. There’s dried paint on the carpet and on the furniture, a few flowering plants in baskets hanging from hooks in the ceiling. The windows need washed and the rough hardwood floor needs vacuumed, but that would involve tidying up the piles of books stacked in random places all over the room. She finds a space on the sagging sofa beside Grantaire, lets their shoulders and thighs press together at the sides, constant, comfortable touch that neither of them move away from.

(And they fall asleep like that, halfway through _The Princess Bride_ , and after they’re startled awake a few hours later by the sound of Courfeyrac honking her horn outside, Enjolras doesn’t mind that Grantaire won’t stop teasing her for drooling on her shoulder.

“It was a nice nap,” she says, voice still thick with sleep. “I wouldn’t mind doing that again.”

She doesn’t see Grantaire’s look of pleasant surprise.)


End file.
